It might seem bizarre but this week is the first full week of teaching in January. It is also the only full week of teaching. Last week we had two national holidays wishing happy birthday to Mohammed on 14th January and then having the opportunity to celebrate the festival of Thaipassum on Friday 17th. Prior to that in the first week we had two days of teaching followed by three enquiry days and next week we are teaching from Monday to Thursday before having Friday 31st off to celebrate the first day of Chinese New Year.
After two weeks in Lao it came quite hard having to get up at 0530 and head off to work again. However we soon got back into the routine. Our first challenge of the term was to sort out an agony of riches situation for Edwin and dance. Being one of only a very few boys who dance and enjoy dancing it has not been difficult for him to find and work with a dance partner, and he and Zi-Tien are making good progress. However there has recently been the offer of another partner for Edwin, in the shape of a colleague's daughter. The second girl was apparently a specialist in Latin, which is what Edwin needs lots of practice in. After much agonizing and discussion Edwin, Lexi and I have decided to leave matters as they are and continue with the established partnership. This has meant that the Saturday morning dance sessions have got a little bit more complicated in that after Edwin's 10.00am lesson in ballroom he then has to go off to another venue around 10km away for a Latin lesson while Rupert and Trixie stay for their lesson. The role of parent also encompasses that of taxi-driver.
Rupert, normally the grubbiest of The Lawrence Three, currently looks like someone has shot him just below his forehead. He made an unorthodox descent from the slide at the nearby park where the last part of the movement was his nose scraping on the ground. Somehow he ended up with a graze on the bridge of his nose which soon scabbed over. Ever the experimenter Rupert soon picked the scab and so his injury went from cigar burn to gun shot wound in appearance, complete with drips of blood. Add to this his perpetually stained and grubby white school polo shirt and hand-me-down shorts that are currently too big for him and you have Lexi and I thanking our lucky stars we are not in the UK or else we would have social services knocking at the door asking awkward questions.
Trixie does not currently have any bleeding lesions or dance partner decisions to make but has, thankfully, recovered from being far too like Junie B. She was recently given a collection of Junie B stories in which the eponymous and very naughty heroine behaves very badly and gets her self into all sorts of scrapes, sometimes of the Rupert variety. Thankfully when we realised that she was trying emulate the female equivalent of Horrid Henry we switched books to the much nicer Billie B Brown instead. In tonight's tale Ms Brown was desperate for a pet. Having understood that neither a pony nor a puppy was suitable, due to the recent birth of her younger brother Noah, Ms B was overjoyed with the arrival of a guinea pig. Lexi has decided not to tell Trixie about guinea pigs and delicacies just yet.
Grandma Sausages has arrived in KL along with her consort, David. Having spent a few days with them in Chateau Lawrence the intrepid pair have jet-settled off to Bangkok, then Hanoi, Singapore and will return here in time to enjoy a few family days in the Cameron Highlands.
And finally culture. We all enjoyed watch Walter Mitty at the cinema last weekend. Silly, escapist and a whole large dollop of niceness.